Field
This disclosure is generally related to distribution of digital content. More specifically, this disclosure is related to a system for efficient and transparent encryption of content in a content centric network.
Related Art
The proliferation of the Internet and e-commerce continues to create a vast amount of digital content. Content centric network (CCN) architectures have been designed to facilitate accessing and processing such digital content. A CCN includes entities, or nodes, such as network clients, forwarders (e.g., routers), and content producers, which communicate with each other by sending interest packets for various content items and receiving content object packets in return. CCN interests and content objects are identified by their unique names, which are typically hierarchically structured variable length identifiers (HSVLI). An HSVLI can include contiguous name components ordered from a most general level to a most specific level.
A CCN data packet (such as an interest or content object) is routed based on its name. Part of the CCN name can be used for routing purposes, and part of the name can contain sensitive data. For example, some name components may be used by an intermediate node to perform forwarding and caching, while other name components may contain private user information or application-specific data. In the latter case, the meaningfulness of the name components may reveal information regarding the requested content and may result in a breach of user privacy or security. In addition, CCN communication may require more than one round trip time (“RTT”) to exchange content and authentication or key exchange information. These issues can affect the security and efficiency of content distribution in a CCN.